The present application generally relates to battery chargers and battery powered appliances and, more particularly, to an electrical contact that receives a battery terminal in a battery charger.
Battery chargers have accommodated a plurality of different sized secondary (rechargeable) batteries simultaneously via multiple, single-battery-receiving bays of different size located in a battery-receiving region. Battery chargers have also accommodated two different sized secondary batteries within a shared or common single-battery-receiving bay. For example, a battery charger has included a single-battery-receiving bay that accepts at any given time either a AA or a AAA sized secondary battery such as nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery. For a battery charger to accommodate different sized batteries within the common single-battery-receiving bay, at least one of a pair of electrical contacts used with the single-battery-receiving bay has to be moveable in a direction corresponding to the length of the batteries.
Some battery chargers are relatively large in size. Such battery chargers have had a main housing containing electrical charging circuitry and a battery-receiving region that receives one or more batteries. However, large sized battery chargers can be tedious for users to transport and use. A portable battery charger has been provided with a collapsible or slidable battery-receiving region that retracts towards the housing to reduce the footprint of the battery charger when a battery is not in the battery-receiving region. With a collapsible battery charger, the extent to which the battery-receiving region can retract towards the housing may depend on the mechanism used to position the electrical contact.
A battery charger has included an electrical contact positioning mechanism that, depending on the orientation of the mechanism, interferes with collapsing the battery-receiving region. As a result, the compactability of the battery charger may be limited and the electrical components, such as the battery-receiving electrical contacts, may be exposed to the surrounding environment and, thus, may be damaged by a user or foreign matter. To collapse such a battery charger, the user has to manually position the electrical contact positioning mechanism at an orientation at which the mechanism does not interfere with the sliding battery-receiving region.